Has your bank closed your account?

oldwiring

Head-Out-Of-Sand wrote: »

I disagree - yes, the accounts may have been problematic, but if the banks genuinely had a problem with this they would be closing them after the first few instances of the limit being breached.

I think perhaps you might be confusing preMartin with afterMartin, as it were. Before the unlawfulness of the charges became apparent, the profits that banks made on the charges for excesses would have gone far to ease the banks' views of delinquent customers. At Martin, the customers changed the situation. Leave aside the lawfulness or unlawfulness of the charges, the change caused by customers demanding full refunds, so that not even the true costs (at whatever level they may have been) were retainable by the banks, has turned the badly conducted accounts from problematic but profitable pt at least breakeven, to problematic and most probably loss making. Therefore that they are taking a hard stance nowm whereas before they did not is not surprising IMO. For the future the outcome of the enquiies and a decision on an appropriate charge level will determine the pattern of treatment of delinquents. It will not happen all a once but I believe it will happen. And It will be much harder to cry, 'bully bank', on an account which continues to be improperly conducted three, six months down the line.

suemaya

Does anyone have any suggestions?
I have been trying to claim £240 from the Halifax, who have been very slow in responding. Eventually had an offer of part payment of £173, I told them to get lost! I told them I would sue and should have started court proceedings on the 24th, I was hoping they would have paid me by now cause I dont really want to go to court!
Anyway the thing I'm really annoyed about is when I signed in online to check my account they have closed it! They've not even told me yet! Can they do this?
And if they do pay out (eventually) I cant pay the cheque in anywhere!
Help!

Chrysalis

On the interests of money management I think direct debits have made the situation worse, they are heavily promoted and often discounted if used for payments but setting up a direct debit I feel is badly managing your money unless you have a high income and are comfortably well off.

Good money management is about shuffling bills and prioritising them and of course budgeting so not spending money you dont have, anyone who lives on a margical income should know what I am on about. The problem with driect debits is it removes your ability to shuffle bills as they are paid on fixed dates. People here defending the banks should also have a think how would they manage if they had a low and unstable income, its all very well for the banks to say they set high as a detterant but if setting them high is illegal it shouldnt be done full stop, banks are greedy and will make lots of money from the most vulnerable people, time and time again these same group of people are targets for charges as they make little money of them for large credit balances.

I have asked on this forum probably 5 times now why dont banks allow any applicant to have a visa electron debit card as it isnt credit and I now think I know the answer, by not supplying the means to pay bills over the phone and the internet the customer is more likely to setup a direct debit, once the direct debit is setup they are more likely to have bounced payments and hence get charged and make the bank a large profit, in other words I think the bank denies debit cards to customers who are likely to make them money from direct debits.

In terms of banks shutting down accounts I believe there is banking regulations that means there should be an account available to anyone, if a bank shuts an account for illegal reasons such as claiming back illegal fees then they are breaking these regulations. Someone please correct me if I am wrong.

Gem2509

Hi everyone

I spoke to a gentleman at the Financial Ombudsman today about the whole issue of banks closing your account.

On the one side they can't...every bank must have a complaints procedure and the bank MUST NOT punish the customer for going through that complaints procedure, obviously closing the account down would accountto punishment.

However, the banks are entitled to choose who they deal with as is everyone else, however he felt, as do I, that if enough people kicked up a fuss about it being closed they wouldn't be able to do it as its is obvious they are doing it only in retaliation, otherwise they'd have closed the accounts when the charges were being occured, not when we were asking for them back!! So basically the banks are using this excuse, but if you stand up to them and fight the previous point about not punishing when complaining etc they can't get away with it.

Hope that clears the issue up for a few people. As I said, thats what someone at the FSO told me.

Keep fighting the banks!!

oldwiring

Gem2509, what you say ay be true, but I'd not say it would be a cake walk to prove retaliation, if either there have been previous requests to conduct account properly. or there is a lapse of time after the refund has been made. TBH I would not recommed the banks' expertise in brick carrying,

TonkaTom

Nationwide -

Although we have refunded charges to your account on this occasion, we are unable to provide you with a current account that is completely free of all charges if you breach the terms and conditions of your account. We will, therefore, expect you to comply with the terms and conditions of the account, in future. If you are unable to do so, it may be appropriate for you to make alternative banking arrangements as it may be necessary for us to give you 30 days notice to close your account if further breaches of the terms and conditions arise.

So they won't be closing my account.

Hope78

Tonka

Just wondered how you managed that with Nationwide? I'm just about to start claiming, have recieved list og charges in post this week, and admit them closing my account is a big fear. I always end up in my overdraft and although I applied for a new current account yesterday I'd rather be able to stay with Nationwide as I'm happy with the service I get.

Cheers
Hope x

cheyennegirl

fabianne wrote: »

Barclays threatened to close the business account that I have if it was not brought back in line with their terms and conditions.I told them they could not do this when an account was in dispute-I am reclaiming my bank charges after following the instructions on the Consumer Action Group website. I then complained about my Business Manager according to the Business Banking Code (section 14)as this was not a helpful nor sympathetic course of action from him,as stated in this code.
My account is in this state due to them applying unlawful bank charges that they keep applying.I shovelled money in-they kept bouncing dd's and cheques and this kept taking me over the overdraft limit.Enough money was going in each month-sometimes a lot more-but with these charges being applied-I could never catch up-it was very frustrating when I was slogging all the hours I could humanly manage to get it all taken in fees. Typically they charged me £35 for an unpaid dd payment and then £30 paid referral fee for then going over my overdraft limit=£65 per transaction.This has been a main reason for closing my business down as I was going further and further into debt.
I have just filed at Court for these charges that total over £2500.
Good luck to all and stand strong-it is YOUR money they are taking by charging daft fee's for an automated process.Claim it back.

I am in the process of claiming back charges £3k. I have a O/D of £400 & one of their Resolve loans for £2k O/D of Bank Charges. This was done before I knew about claiming bank charges. However, now I am unemployed and made a token offer (to both ) as advised by CAB, which was rejected. Now Barclays have advised me they are closing the A/C. I think it is retaliation. I was told that they cannot 'close an account in dispute'. I shall be writing to them, but want to check what I have told, and is it in writing any where. I did likewise make sure money covered the DD, but it still grew. Of course being unemployed does not help the cause when in this situation !!!!

spookykid

barclays have just closed my account. I have been trying to claim my charges back from them and I have accepted an offer from them but they now have closed my account but as I understand it I am entitled to compensation from them for closing the account. is this true

Rudehamster

I got my charges, interest and court costs refunded, but on the morning that they did this, Nationwide charged me a further bunch of £30 charges for bounced direct debits. I contacted them and they refused to remove the charges. Today I got a letter (dated a week ago) which stated:
'Although we have refunded charges to your account on this occasion, we are unable to provide you with a current account that is completely free of all charges if you breach the terms and conditions of your account. We will, therefore, expect you to comply with the terms and conditions of your account in future. If you are unable to do so, it may be appropriate for you to make alternative banking arrangements as it may me necessary for us to give you 30 days notice to close your account if further breaches of the terms and conditions arise.'
Effectively, and bearing in mind today's refusal to remove the charges they slapped on last week, they are saying that they are about to close my account. I thought the Nationwide had stopped closing accounts, after adverse publicity.
Can anyone tell me what I should be doing now? I am an undischarged bankrupt (thanks to the Halifax and their carry on), so will find opening another bank account almost impossible.